The Treasure Keeper

you'll be doing whilst I'm relaxing in this fairy-tale castle?'

'I will be here,' she answered calmly. 'I will be killing sanf'

'My, that's absolutely splendid.' He dug his fingers into the table to sit as high up as he could; the wood ripped like paper beneath his claws. 'Do you even remember that night at the dance hall? Do you remember at all what happened? The two men? The knife?'

'I remember everything,' she said, impassive.

'Really? Because I could have bloody sworn you just said you'd be tripping about, killing the sanf inimicus, when I couldn't even get you to bloody smother a dying man who was doing his damnedest to kill you first! But now you're ready?Now you're lethal, willing to murder in cold blood?'

'Yes. Now.'

He nearly smacked his palm to his forehead but caught himself in time. 'Zoe! This isn't what he would want!'

She shoved back from the table so quickly her chair tipped over. 'Don't tell me what he'd want.'

'Why not? I can't speak his name? I can't imagine myself in his position? I love you! And God help him, if Hayden ever loved you, he wouldn't want you in danger like this!'

She stared at him with her cheeks gone bloodless and her eyes so black he thought he'd see eternity in them. She looked like she wanted to spit in his face. Then, without another word, she turned around and left.

Rhys unstuck his hands from the table. The gouged wood shone in long, pale scars against the otherwise warm cherry stain.

'You'll agree I managed that nicely.' His claws clicked against his plate. 'It bodes well for our wedded bliss, don't you think?'

Sandu was staring at him with his brows drawn into a frown. 'You were at the dance hall with the sanf?'

Rhys sighed, wishing for more coffee. He stabbed a piece of toast instead, lifted it to the light. 'It's a long story.'

'I believe I have time.' The prince glanced back at the cook, who watched them both now with wide brown eyes. 'Oh. Yes.' He switched to French. 'You're to forget all that, as well.'

* * *

He found her in the back garden. She felt him approaching from the hallway, felt his living warmth, the odd, unexpected whisper of gold that wafted about him now. More significantly, she heard his sliding, mismatched pace upon the floor. He could not walk well. It must hurt, putting weight upon his feet.

Yet he came to her. She was seated on the steps again because there was nowhere else dry to sit. The garden had been devoted either to grass or gangly tall herbs; it had no benches or chairs or even flat stones. So she sat upon the steps.

The rain had swept to the south around dawn. Droplets dewed everything before her, grass and twigs and leaves, darkened the trunks of the trees. If she angled her head a certain way, the sun lit the beads of water into thousands of round perfect jewels.

At least the fence around the yard was high. No one would easily see them, not unless they crept up to press an eye against the slats.

'Please do not say you've come to apologize.' She'd wrapped her arms around her knees, interwoven her fingers hard to keep herself fixed.

'I haven't. My parents told me never to lie.'

She narrowed her eyes at the colors of the alder, tan and red and brown. 'Laudable.'

'And fruitless. Lying can be marvelously useful, especially if you're good at it, as I know you've already discovered.'

'You're not going to change my mind.'

'Am I not?' He sank down two steps above, slowly, in jerks. 'As you wish. Listen well to the opinion of an educated lady. That's what my mother used to say.'

'Did she.'

'Yes. She liked you, you know.'

She turned her face, gazed deliberately at the mangled mess of his right foot on the stair above her. 'Now you're lying.'

'No. Honestly. Even when we were young, she thought you had . a certain zest of spirit. It was Father whom you scared. Mother was all out for you.'

Zoe dropped her forehead into the cup of her palm. 'My sister was in love with you.'

'Was she?' He sounded much brighter. 'Excellent. Er, I mean . how nice.'

'You are as insubstantial as the specter I thought you were, Lord Rhys. You feel nothing with your heart. You test nothing with your depths. You say you love me, but I think it must be merely the reflection of my face. My Gifts. I don't know how I can be expected to live the rest of my life bound to someone who doesn't even know my favorite color. The name of my childhood pet. The ages of my nieces.'

'It was that rooster, wasn't it?' he said, after a moment. 'I recollect that. You called him a pet. Nasty thing. Kept attacking me, even if I was just strolling in the remote vicinity of your cottage. I vow it hid in trees just to ambush me. I never harmed a feather on his malicious little body, but by God, he hated me.'

'Yes.' She rocked a little, started to laugh, but it choked in her throat. 'All right. You win. We're meant to live happily ever after.'

He eased down another step. 'Is your favorite color blue?'

'No. Definitely not.'

'Ah—wait. I do know. You don't have a single favorite color.' She felt something inside her fall into silence. Waiting and still and arrested.

'It's three colors,' Rhys said. 'Gold, silver, and pink.'

Zoe lifted her head, scooted around in place to stare at him. 'You found my diary.'

He lifted his terrible hands. 'No, love. But I've seen you, the other side of you. Your dragon self. Those were your colors.'

'What are you talking about?'

'From before, when I was a ghost, and you were my light. I saw you once as a dragon in the palace. You were asleep.' He looked down, curled his fingers closer to his palms. 'Gold and pink and silver. We'd look very well together, I think. As dragons. In that ghost world.'

The children next door had been set free into their yard. The dog on the other side was gone, but high- pitched laughter and shouts began to punctuate the clear morning air.

'I do not know the ages of your nieces,' the monster confessed in a low voice. 'I don't even know their names. I left the minute details of our tribe to my father and my brother. It seemed to matter more to them. I was a flippant fellow, Zee. You know that. I was more concerned with the cut of my coat than the ways of the shire. Mostly.'

She surprised herself with his defense. 'I don't think that's true.

'No? You're too kind. But it is true that I went adrift for some while. I let the shallows move me, when I should have not.'

A little girl next door let out a furious screech, then a babble of words. Another girl shrieked back at her.

'We're all meant to learn our lessons,' Zoe said at last, under the screaming. 'If you drifted, at least now you have the chance to head home.'

'Yes.' Metal ribbons at the corner of her eye; the soft, slight pressure of his hand upon her shoulder. 'I'd like that. I'd like to go home.' His talons skimmed her dress. 'Will you come with me, my heart, my compass and anchor, Zoe Langford?'

She did not answer. In time, as the sun climbed and climbed, as the shadows shortened and the children tired and returned back inside their home, he rose. And then he left.

The prince departed that evening. He truly meant to fly, something that would have been unthinkable back in England, but he would carry a satchel and the female Zaharen, and claimed they'd reach the borders of his realm within days.

The backyard was too narrow for a grown dragon to take flight, and the front was far too open and visible